Lets say, just for the sake of discussion, I'm doing something different and rather large, and I want to present it with a strikingly different tone? Like, uhm... maybe a campaign setting set in a world reminiscent of mythical Japan. Would using a font for headers only that deviates from the established guidelines be acceptable?

Also, as there hasn't been a full color BFRPG-related release yet, would having the hypothetical release being being full color be problematic?

I do not post updates to anything on the Downloads page without an email to prompt me. Since I do get behind on things, I need a work queue to ensure I get everything done when I get around to it. So, if you have a supplement posted on the forum, and you want it on the Downloads page, you better email me or it will never happen.

I do not post everything I receive; in particular, works that are too much like other things may be rejected (something I've not been careful enough about in the past), as may works that I find too different from the core game. Rejection from posting on the Downloads page does not mean you can't distribute your work... it just means I won't distribute it.

With the impending opening of the Basic Fantasy Showcase, I feel the need to write up some guidelines on submissions. Here goes:

How to Create a New Adventure or Supplement

First, you need a good idea. That should go without saying. Write up a first version of your concept and post it in the Workshop, where others can critique it for you. When your submission is complete, post it to the Showcase (if you have a Showcase account) or contact me (Solomoriah) to let me know that you have a complete work and would like a Showcase account for it. Once I've looked it over, if I feel it is up to snuff, I'll upgrade your forum account to a Showcase account and you'll be able to post it there.

Highly rated Showcase products may be selected by me to be included on the main Downloads page.

If you are creating an adventure, please download the Adventure Template attached to this post and follow the directions inside it to create your adventure. All adventures for the Downloads page (and eventually for printing!) must be in the standard format, and using the Adventure Template styles will make that easy for you.

What Goes Where, and Why

The Workshop is the "wild west" of game material writing and sharing. You can write pretty much whatever you want and post it there, so long as you obey the Rules (see below). This means that you are likely to find unfinished, half-baked, and/or badly conceived ideas there, as well as the sort of excellent works such as you are used to finding on this site.

The Showcase is for recognized authors to post their work. There may be many different "takes" on one or another concept (I'm sure we'll have a number of Rangers, for instance). Showcase products should be complete; if you are an approved author, please don't submit incomplete works there. "Unfinished" works in the Showcase should be limited to adventures which are fully playable, but in need of things like artwork, flavor text, and other "fluff" that we all love but don't actually need.

The Downloads page is for official and approved works, which will all be complete. Official works include the core rules... and pretty much nothing else. All other items on the Downloads page are approved by me. With respect to rule supplements, there will eventually be only one regular way to do each thing on that page; I'm going to be very picky about what I allow there. This means that some items presently found there will be "demoted" to the Showcase, and that does include some of my items. In fact, some of my own items will be demoted all the way down to the Workshop.

The Rules

To appear on this site in any fashion, a work must be legitimately free. This means that all text, and all required graphics (such as maps, for example), are Open Game Content. Decorative artwork does not have to follow this rule, but you must have the right to redistribute any artwork you use in your product, and you must be able to explain to me how you have such a right. Of course, any work being shared here must also not be infringing anyone else's copyright.

To appear on the Downloads page, a work must be in the standard style. We attempt to maintain consistency in look and feel not just for artistic reasons, but because it makes it easier for GMs to pick up any adventure or supplement from the site and use it immediately. Showcase items should be in the standard style, and if you want an item from the Showcase to make it to the Downloads page, this will be a deal-breaker.

Showcase products should be complete; Downloads page products must be complete.

Why am I doing all this?

The current Downloads page has gotten unwieldy, and I wasn't the first to mention that newbies find it hard to choose from among all the different versions of common subclasses. These changes will clean up the Downloads page substantially, making it more friendly to new users.

The new Showcase will hopefully meet the needs of recognized authors to present their works in a way consistent with the Downloads page. It will be a less messy way to view contributed works, focusing on the actual materials rather than the ongoing discussions. The Showcase allows you to link an existing forum thread, such as a Workshop thread, to a product so that you can guide users of your works to the place where you want them to comment.

What font is used for many of the adventure titles? It doesn't seem to be referenced in this post and I couldn't find it in any other. If the question is already addressed, feel free to simply point me to the related post.

I just recently discovered BFRPG, and I've become a huge fan. I've been proselytizing to my gaming buddies, and many of them are going to give BFRPG a chance.

I'm looking forward to contributing a few sub classes, and maybe an adventure if our new campaign pans out. The issue I'm having is formatting with LibreOffice (mac). I download a few different .odt files from the download section, and all of them (the 3 I've looked at) have spacing issues and a weird font overlap and they don't format out the way the PDFs look of the same file. Is this a margins issues? Is anyone else creating supplements on the mac version of LibreOffice?

You need the Century Gothic and Soutane (including SoutaneBlack) font families to work on BFRPG projects. The former family is installed with a number of different Microsoft products, while the latter is available from a few sites on the Internet.

Titles are set in a variety of fonts; if you want to use something decorative for an adventure title page, let me know so I can be sure of getting a proper PDF conversion with it.